Interview with the Founder, CEO of WazirX, Nischal Shetty

Today we are lucky enough to welcome Nischal Shetty the Founder, CEO of WazirX Cryptocurrency Exchange. Nischal was named in Forbes India’s 30 under 30 list. WazirX is India’s cryptocurrency exchange where you can Buy, Sell & Trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin and more cryptocurrencies in India.

Koinalert Founder and CEO, Ashish Kumar had the pleasure of asking Nischal Shetty a few questions. Included below are some Q&A’s from that conversation.

Ashish: What’s the current demand for P2P crypto trading in India after RBI ban?

Nischal: Way more than anyone in the industry expected it to be! We’re overwhelmed by the overly positive feedback we’ve been getting from all our users for WazirX P2P. Before the ban, many were skeptical whether P2P will work mostly because of reasons such as fraud, speed of transaction and the difficult process of buying and selling that traditional classified listing kind of websites had. We decided to fix this problem and innovate. The result is in front of everyone. We see more than 1 trade per minute on WazirX P2P today! That’s the highest P2P trading velocity in the country.

Ashish: How is your P2P crypto trading is different from others?

Nischal: If you try out WazirX P2P you will realize it’s fast, secure (KYC verified, robust & fast dispute resolution) and it’s very very easy to use. We launched the world’s first automated P2P which means users don’t have to worry about dealing with buyers and sellers or individually go through listings of buy and sell order etc. They just fill up the buy or sell form and WazirX automatically does the rest for them.

The WazirX P2P experience is as seamless as the regular market trading experience that users are already used to. This screenshot is the WazirX P2P screen but it looks, feels and acts exactly like the traditional exchange market.

Ashish: As in the recent years, there has been a lot of crypto-related scams/frauds. Tell me your opinion regarding this.

Nischal: As an individual/investor, you have to be careful about where you’re sharing your information, and putting your hard-earned money. In the recent months, there have been several banking, credit card, sim-swapping frauds – but you don’t see anyone banning any of these, do you? I don’t see why cryptos should get a different treatment.

Ashish: What are the security features that you provide for your users to have their account and their digital coin secure?

Nischal: We’re building WazirX as India’s most trusted cryptocurrency exchange. We verify the email address, mobile number, PAN Card and address proof of every user before allowing them to trade on WazirX. This ensures the legitimacy of the people on the platform. We also have advanced security features like 2FA and in-app passcode on WazirX. Moreover, we invest in regular security audits to ensure a highly secured trading platform for India. We maintain most of the funds in cold wallet and only a small amount is in the hot wallet at any given point in time.

Ashish: Do you think India is going to adopt the cryptocurrencies even more in the coming years?

Nischal: Yes, the crypto fever is spreading like wildfire. Cryptocurrencies aren’t a fad, they are the future. A lot of countries have adopted cryptocurrencies positively, and it will be a shame if Indians are left behind here. What we’re seeing is just the beginning. You and I are early adopters of this great online revolution!

Ashish: Recently International Blockchain Congress hosted in Hyderabad will it create a blockchain ecosystem in India?

Nischal: It’s a good start but one event won’t be enough. We need to see more events around Blockchain/Cryptocurrency in India and a lot more startups focused on Blockchain. We also need to get Blockchain into our curriculum as this has already started happening in other countries. But most importantly, we need the Government to positively embrace cryptocurrencies so that it gets mainstream attention in India.

Ashish: Many big universities are going to add blockchain as a course do you think Indian universities should also add it?

Nischal: Yes, they should. There’s a lot of fear and uncertainty surrounding cryptos in India due to the lack of understanding. The more people read about how blockchain works, the more they’ll realise its power. The young school kids of today are going to be growing up in a world of digital assets. It’s best if they acquire knowledge about cryptocurrencies right at the beginning.

Ashish: Please share your journey so far and the way forward.

Nischal: It’s been almost 6 months since WazirX trading platform launched, and we’ve come a long way. The response we’ve received for WazirX and WazirX P2P is phenomenal and overwhelming. In these few months, we’ve seen the bear market, the RBI Ban, and from our user stats, it’s evident that Indians are positive about crypto and want to trade in it! We hope that the Indian government understands it too, and regulates crypto soon – it’s a win-win for all!